SAFETY-03: alarm when a computed setpoint exceeds the rating, do not just clip it

The clamp was never the missing half. specs.md 10.3 records an unclamped
integrator climbing ~130 W per 4 s past 10 kW and reporting 14 768 W pinned at
the 5 kW rail; clipped silently that is a flat, legal-looking 5000 W hold and
nothing says the loop asked for three times it.

write_setpoint() - the one path every write takes - now clamps to the VALIDATED
max_w and reports whether the raw value differed; check_output_clamp() raises
OUTPUT_CLAMP as a notification, an ERROR, an event row and a red status banner.
Not a trip: the clamped value is written and the loop keeps running.

The rating is max_w and nothing is min()ed at runtime - CFG-01 already refuses a
max_w outside the device range at startup. The device range is applied second as
defence in depth; it cannot bite after a successful validation, so if it ever
does it alarms too and names the bound. No new config key.

Decision grew i_clamped / clamped booleans, and that is the load-bearing part:
`reason` is one string that slew-limiting and the saturation freeze overwrite,
so an alarm keyed on it is silent on exactly the cycles a winding loop produces.
Mutating main.py back onto the string drops the 10.3 replay from 2 engagements
to 0.

Distinct from saturation by construction - no shared reason code, notification
id, status row or counter - and checked in the negative, after first asserting
the saturation freeze really did engage.

Two things found by running it rather than by reading it: a row per engagement
flushed the 40-row event log and evicted SAFETY-18's own METER FROZEN? row (now
coalesced per episode with an exact count), and a naive clamp turns a nan into a
command at the full rating because every comparison against nan is False.

test_clamp.py is new: assert-based, no framework. Six author mutations
reproduced red, including "clamp kept, alarm deleted". Two of the check's own
hypotheses about the freeze/clamp interaction were refused by its sweep and
rewritten to what it measured.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_015VXjA3LWccN1rJsk3okyPC
This commit is contained in:
glenn schrooyen
2026-08-30 15:22:22 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 0cdaa3bd3e
commit c040aac4b8
8 changed files with 1098 additions and 13 deletions
+23 -3
View File
@@ -64,6 +64,23 @@ class Decision:
# and quantisation. Carry it back in as `i_w` next cycle; that is what keeps
# it a separate quantity from the command.
i_w: float = 0.0
# SAFETY-03. Did a clamp actually engage this cycle - i.e. did the RAW
# computed value differ from the bounded one?
#
# ⚠️ THESE EXIST BECAUSE `reason` CANNOT ANSWER THAT QUESTION. `reason` is
# one string and every later stage overwrites it: a cycle that clamps the
# integrator and is then slew limited reports "slew-limited", and one that
# clamps while saturated reports "saturated-freeze". Both ARE the winding
# case, and on the string the clamp signal is gone before anything can alarm
# on it. These two are written where the clamp happens and are never
# overwritten, so they mean exactly what they say and nothing else.
#
# `i_clamped` is the one that fires on a default install: the integrator
# bound is reached first, so `clamped` is unreachable unless
# `integrator_max_w` is deliberately set above `max_w`. Alarm on BOTH - see
# the comment at the bound below, and clamp.py.
i_clamped: bool = False
clamped: bool = False
def compute(
@@ -188,7 +205,8 @@ def compute(
# bound is not. It is what makes the worst-case unwind time finite and
# knowable instead of a function of how long the error happened to stand.
bounded = max(-limit, min(limit, i_w))
if bounded != i_w:
i_clamped = bounded != i_w
if i_clamped:
# ⚠️ SAFETY-03 (alarm whenever the loop winds into a rail) must watch
# for THIS, not for "clamped" below. At the default limit == max_w the
# integrator bound is reached first and the command derived from it can
@@ -209,7 +227,8 @@ def compute(
# --- ORDER MATTERS: clamp -> slew -> freeze ----------------------------
# An early draft applied a floor after the clamp and let demand escape it.
target = max(-tuning.max_w, min(tuning.max_w, want))
if target != want:
clamped = target != want
if clamped:
reason = "clamped"
slewed = max(prev_w - tuning.slew_w, min(prev_w + tuning.slew_w, target))
@@ -235,7 +254,8 @@ def compute(
step = max(1, int(tuning.step_w))
target = round(target / step) * step
return Decision(float(target), sat_count, frozen, reason, float(i_w))
return Decision(float(target), sat_count, frozen, reason, float(i_w),
i_clamped, clamped)
def maintenance_charge_floor(